


Shattered

by theisraelproject107



Series: Mirror Mirror [1]
Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: AkuRokuRiSo Month 2k15, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-10
Updated: 2015-09-12
Packaged: 2018-04-20 00:24:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 17,043
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4766585
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theisraelproject107/pseuds/theisraelproject107
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After a fateful visit to a store filled with mirrors, Riku is haunted by a rash of bad luck that goes so far as to threaten his life. With nowhere else to turn, he eventually tracks down Sora, but whether Sora can help him or not is another matter entirely...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Part One

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: Shattered  
> Main pairing: RiSo  
> Rating: T  
> Word count: 7747  
> AO3 collection: http://archiveofourown.org/collections/AkuRokuRiSo_Month  
> Prompter: wordsebbandflow (tumblr)
> 
> Part One of a Twofer

Riku had time to kill. He wandered through downtown Hollow Bastion, along its network of curving streets and alleyways, rugged up against the cool weather in a coat and scarf, his messenger bag slung over his chest. He had eaten lunch with friends after his morning classes, but Kairi and the others had tutorials to attend before Riku’s next lecture at three, so rather than hang about campus, he’d decided a walk and some exploration was called for.

He’d lived in Hollow Bastion for two years now, but still the place managed to surprise him. It was so filled with little pop-up shops that appeared and vanished seemingly overnight, and entire, teeming communities that you could easily walk right by without noticing due to the messy way the streets cut to and fro. Riku liked it like this – it meant that even after all this time, he could go exploring and actually find something new and different. It was completely different from the island he’d come from in order to attend HBU – growing up in a small place with the same people day after day made him appreciate just how large and varied the rest of the world could be.

Today, for example, he’d come across a street he’d never noticed before, at the edge of the commercial district – it was long, and dimly lit because the high wall between the districts blocked out a lot of the sun. Maybe this was why he hadn’t spotted it in the past – on his way to other places, he’d never thought to look off to the right until just now. He stood at the street’s entrance, gazing down the sharp, swooping hill it followed, wondering for a moment if it was worth the trek back up. But then, about halfway down, he saw a sign for a mirror shop. He had been needing a new mirror since Tidus had managed to break the one in their dorm room while practicing Blitzball moves indoors, like a dick.

Mind made up, he turned and headed down, shoes scuffing the quaint cobblestones. As he went, it gradually occurred to him how… _quiet_ it was along here. The noise and commotion of the city seemed to melt behind him the further downhill he ventured, until, pausing outside the mirror shop, it felt almost like an entirely different place altogether. Head turning, he gazed back up the way he’d come. It looked a lot more distant from here than it had when he’d first looked down from the top. The sunlight seemed… a long way off.

Shaking off the small shiver that tickled the back of his neck, Riku turned his attention to the mirror store. The door was open, the shop beyond a little gloomy, but definitely stacked with its promised product: mirrors as far as the eye could see. Stepping inside, Riku slowly unwound his scarf as the store’s heating enveloped him. The counter was empty, the cash register old-looking, a dormant computer to one side. As far as Riku could tell, the entire store was deserted. He stopped, twisting the scarf around his hands, and glanced about, listening carefully. Nothing. Nobody. Maybe the cashier had stepped out for a smoke? Or to pee?

Well, at the very least, Riku could look around, and if he found something that appealed to him, he could just wait by the counter for someone to appear. Leaving the counter behind, he started down one aisle and entered a world of mirrors. It was kind of like being in a funhouse. Everywhere he looked, reflected versions of himself peered back, sliding into and out of view as he ambled slowly along. Price stickers were smoothed against the frames, Riku’s face twisting in displeasure at how expensive everything seemed to be. The mirrors all made the same face back, evidently disapproving of his being cheap.

It didn’t take him long to reach the end of the aisle, and with only one other to go, on the other side of this one, his chances of finding something affordable weren’t looking good. Ideally, he’d wanted something floor-length, but obviously _that_ wasn’t going to happen. His next goal, therefore, was something that would at least show his reflection to the shoulders, but nothing he’d seen so far had been in his price range. He should’ve charged Tidus for the breakage. Maybe he could convince the unruly blond to go halves in something.

Lost in thought, steeped in silence, when something flickered at the corner of his eye, Riku automatically turned to look. He blinked, then blinked again, lips parting as he found himself staring at – an absolutely stunning mirror. It glass was dark, dull from age, but the frame was incredible: burnished brass, decorated with intricate etchings, accompanied by embossed leaves studded all over the place, almost as if they grew from the mirror itself. It was breathtaking. It had to be an antique. There was no price tag attached, and it wouldn’t have mattered if there had; Riku knew with one look that he wasn’t going to be able to afford it, not in _this_ lifetime.

Even so, he couldn’t help but want to gaze at it longer. He’d never seen anything like it. He crossed the floor in several steps and stood with a hand hovering over the frame, scarcely daring to touch it. Glancing over his shoulder, finding that he was still completely alone and unlikely to get yelled at for accosting the wares, he gently traced a finger over some of the engravings. The brass was cold to touch, and smooth. The glass barely reflected him, though. Maybe it wasn’t for sale, after all – maybe it already belonged to someone, and had been brought in for a cleaning.

With that thought hovering in his mind, he reluctantly curled his fingers back into his palm. Still, he couldn’t just leave it like this – he needed a memento, or no one would believe that he had become infatuated with a piece of glass and a frame.

Bringing out his phone, he primed it to take a picture and held it up, trying to fit as much of the mirror into the shot as he could. The first one he took was almost impossible to make out; with a frustrated frown, he looked up at the crappy lighting and set the flash on his phone. There might be some glare as it bounced off the glass, but at least he should be able to make the frame visible, and that was the stunning part.

He thumbed the button to take the shot – and in the sudden burst of light saw a white, featureless face, like a corpse, staring out at him from the mirror’s depths. Riku dropped his phone with a strangled gasp, then heard a sharp _crack_ and looked down at where the phone had slammed against the floor. _“…Shit!”_ He bent quickly to retrieve it, finding a long split and some spider-webbing on the screen. Again, he cursed, and straightened quickly to try and study the damage under the light, momentarily forgetting the face in the glass. As he rose, however, his shoulder bumped the stand the mirror rested on and, to his utmost horror, it started to tip.

If Riku hadn’t lunged in a panic right then, it might have righted itself; but his desperate grab in fact made things worse, and managed to knock the frame forward. Whoever said that these things happened as if in slow motion was lying: for Riku, it was over all too swiftly, the terrible crash as the glass shattered against the floor seeming to reverberate for days. His heart thundered, his breaths coming in short bursts. _What had he done?_ He looked around frantically for the store owner, a fierce, internal debate raging as to whether or not he should stay and face the music or _fucking run_ and protect his feeble bank balance. His feet shifted agitatedly, crunching on fragmented glass, which had splashed outward like water, sending shards spinning to every corner of the store.

Just then, the owner arrived.

She swept into view from the end of the aisle, a short, gnarled old woman with a long, black dress and sagging skin. And she. Looked. Furious. She moved faster than should have been possible, darting so sharply towards him it was like she hadn’t touched the ground. Before Riku could back away and begin gabbling all the apologies that crowded behind his teeth, she snatched his wrist and squeezed, hard enough to hurt, her green eyes glinting ferociously as she howled, _“You_ _clumsy oaf! Look at what you’ve done!”_

“I can pay for the damage!” Riku managed to get out, lying through his teeth but frantic to appease her rage. She seemed to swell with it, seemed to – to _stretch,_ until she was no longer shorter than him but _tall,_ so tall that she was almost dragging him up by his arm, and getting taller with every second until Riku was sure she was going to pull it right out of its socket.

“Oh, you will _certainly pay,”_ she thundered in response, her voice gaining a shrill, hysterical edge. “For seven years, you will _pay!_ Your luck took a turn for the _worst_ when you came near _my_ mirror, _boy.”_

With that, she wound up, and – punched him, right in the chest. He felt like his heart had hit his ribs with the force of it, but when he looked down, her hand had stopped several inches back. Instead, something terrible and dark was pouring from her and into him, making his body shake, his teeth rattle, his eyes rolling up into his skull...

And then, very abruptly, Riku found himself outside again, standing on the sidewalk, facing the road with no recollection of having got here. He was trembling all over, sick to his stomach, his chest aching. He looked down and patted himself, bewildered, looking for – for whatever that hideous black stuff had been, that _smoke…_ but he was fine. Just fine. He turned sharply, but the mirror shop was dark, the door shut and evidently locked, a small _‘Closed’_ sign hanging in the window, as if it had never been open in the first place.

Feeling a chill that had nothing to do with the fact that the sun was hidden behind the district wall, or that he somehow was missing his scarf, Riku turned on his heel and started running. Whatever that had been, whatever had just happened to him… he just wanted to be as far away from the mirror store as possible.

.o.O.o.

Riku’s heart was still throbbing when he eventually pushed open the door to the dorm room he shared with Tidus, after having quickly crossed the campus, trying not to look as rattled as he felt. He just – he needed to sit down somewhere quiet for a while, and gather his scattered wits.

He then nearly lost his head as, the second the door swung wide, a Blitzball came rocketing through. Riku barely managed to move out of the way in time, yelping and twisting on instinct. The ball was a blur, slamming so hard into the opposite wall it became lodged there.

For a long, breathless moment, Riku stared at it. Inside the room, Tidus was doing the same. Then all at once, the pair of them starting moving again.

“Holy _crap,_ Riku, are you okay?”

Turning on him, absolutely not able to deal with this right now, Riku gasped, “You _idiot!_ You nearly took my head off! What the hell were you thinking!?” Stalking to the where the ball sat suspended at head height, he waved his hands agitatedly at the damage. “It’s _embedded in the fucking wall, Tidus!”_

Looking worried, the blond trotted out to check the damage. “Shiiiiit. Do you think they’ll know it was us?”

 _“Us?_ You’re the one who did it, not me! What the _fuck,_ Tidus?”

Bewildered and sorry-looking, Tidus set to work twisting the ball out from the new hole. “I – I really don’t know how this happened. I was just _bouncing_ it, I swear I wasn’t practicing any kicks.” Managing to yank it free with a fine shower of plaster, he stared at the resultant crater.

Riku pointed to it accusingly. “You’re telling me that _that_ happened because you were ‘just bouncing it’?”

More baffled by the second, Tidus insisted, “Yes! I swear! I was sitting on my bed just _bouncing_ it with my hand, and then it – hit a bump or something, and catapulted away from me. I haven’t practiced in our room since I broke the mirror.”

At the mention of mirrors, Riku felt a chill, shaking it off with a sharp shrug. “Well – that seems highly unlikely,” he gruffly said.

Tidus shrugged, the helplessness of his expression fairly convincing. “I don’t know what to tell you, man. But I swear it was an accident.”

Riku huffed, shook his head, and muttered, “Whatever. At least I got out of the way in time.”

Tidus nodded emphatically, following him as he entered their room. “No kidding. Jesus, if that had actually _hit_ you…” He took a moment to shudder a little. “I’m… not ready to be sent to prison for manslaughter.”

Riku scoffed, “It wouldn’t have killed me.” But as he turned and glanced back, catching a final glimpse of the wall before Tidus swung the door shut… his certainty about that weakened a little. The Blitzball had been _rocketing._ Who knew _what_ would have happened if it had hit him square on? It wasn’t like the walls here were super thin. It had had some serious velocity behind it, to be able to punch into one like that. Suspicious all over again of the veracity of Tidus’ claims of innocence, he glowered a little at the blond, sitting on his bed and unhooking his bag from his shoulder. Pushing his hands through his hair, he felt suddenly exhausted. It had been – a long day so far.

“I really am sorry,” Tidus said, Riku eyeing him critically, before losing some of his ire at the crestfallen expression on the guy’s face.

“Yeah, well – just put the damn ball away, would you? Wouldn’t want to have it _bouncing_ again and take the door out next.”

Tidus hurriedly complied, rolling it under his bed where it could do no further damage. A little more brightly, he said, “Anyway, I’m surprised to see you here – did your lecture get cancelled? If you’re interested, me and Wakka are heading over to –”

“Oh, my _God, shit, the lecture!”_ Riku surged back up to his feet, dragging his bag with him. He leapt to the door and wrenched it open, sprinting past the hole in the wall and back out onto the campus grounds. How had he forgotten about the lecture!? How had he lost track of _time_ so badly? And the professor hosting it was notorious for locking the doors after the five-minute mark, if Riku was late then that meant that –

Yep. He’d missed the lecture.

He stood outside the bolted doors of the lecture hall and bumped his head against the wood, sighing deeply. What a day. Maybe he should have just stayed in bed. Or at least stayed on campus. It was from the moment he’d decided that going for a walk was a good idea that everything had gone downhill.

With nothing to do but glumly wait for the lecture to finish to see if he could wheedle some notes out of the professor, he slumped off towards the cafeteria. At the end of the line he found Kairi, who greeted him cheerfully. “Riku! I thought you had a lecture now?” Riku’s face was all the answer she needed. She winced sympathetically. “Ouch. Missed the five-minute mark, huh?”

“By about twenty minutes,” he gloomily confirmed.

“Wow. What held you up?”

Riku thought about it, scratching his head absently. “I – I guess I just took longer getting back from town that I realised. I went exploring, and…” He shook his head. He couldn’t really remember – he hadn’t got lost, but he’d just… he’d taken a lot longer getting back than was normal. He sighed. “Well, it doesn’t matter now.”

Kairi squeezed his wrist. It was supposed to be a comforting gesture, but – it _hurt._ With a grunt, he snatched his hand free, audibly slapping Kairi away. Startled, she exclaimed, “Ow! Riku!” It had been a sharp slap. The skin on her arm was rapidly turning pink.

Staring, Riku was momentarily lost for words. “Kairi… I…” He wanted to apologise, but – _God,_ his wrist was _stinging._ He tugged back the sleeves of his coat and sweater, Kairi letting out a low noise of surprise as their eyes fell upon a wicked bruise that encircled his flesh, dark and ugly, and very obviously in the shape of a hand print.

Dismayed, Kairi demanded, “What is that? Who did that to you?” Her eyes were as wide as saucers, Riku struck dumb as he held up his hand and inspected the damage. “Riku?”

All he could manage was a hoarsely uttered, “So it _did_ happen…”

“What?” Kairi asked, with distress. “What happened? Who hurt you like this?”

 _“Next!”_ The line had been moving, the pair of them automatically shuffling along until they were unexpectedly at the head of it. Kairi hurriedly picked a fruit salad and bought it, while Riku looked for a paopu pudding. They were his one and only vice, an indulgence that never failed to cheer him up.

After a moment of struggling to find them, he asked the lunch-lady, “Uh, where are the paopu puddings?”

“All out,” she curtly answered. As Riku felt himself drooping, Kairi started poking and pushing through the cups of puddings and fruit salads, determined to help out.

After a moment, she cried, “Wait! I found one!” Triumphantly, she withdrew her arm from the refrigerated case and held up the small, sealed container of yellow pudding.

A relieved smile broke out across Riku’s face. Finally, something was going right. Unzipping his bag, he reached into a pocket and felt around for his wallet. Frowning, he pulled his hand out then delved in again. He opened his bag wide, a splinter of panic starting up as he sensed the impatience of the people behind him. “Um. I – I can’t find my money. My wallet’s…”

Once more coming to the rescue, Kairi quickly stepped in as the lunch-lady reached to confiscate his pudding. “Here – I’ll get it.” She handed over the money and pushed the dessert into Riku’s hand, taking his elbow and tugging him gently out of line. “Come on, come over here and we’ll look together.”

They found a table by the windows, and spent a good ten minutes sifting through Riku’s belongings – but nowhere amongst it all was his wallet. Numbly, he mumbled, “Maybe I left it back in the dorm…?” He was so sure he’d had it on him, though.

Kairi, sitting down and peeling the lid off her fruit salad, asked, “What’s going on with you today? What on earth happened to your wrist?”

Riku distantly shook his head. His stuff firmly zipped back up in his bag, he sat across from her and glumly opened his pudding. “I – I don’t really know.” He had a memory of what had happened in the mirror shop, but… actually making _sense_ of it was impossible. It wasn’t like that old lady could _really_ have grown seven feet high and crushed a bruise into his wrist – it wasn’t like that black stuff had _really_ poured out of her and into him, or that he’d then magically appeared outside the shop like he’d never walked in. Had he? Had he really entered the mirror store? It was starting to feel increasingly like a hazy, bad dream.

Dipping a plastic spoon into his dessert, he swirled it around pensively then brought a scoop to his lips. At least paopu pudding never changed.

Except for this time.

 _“Br – blurgh!”_ Nearly gagging, Riku spat out what he could of his mouthful, though some of it had definitely gone down. Most of it, if he was honest with himself. He just didn’t like to think about it too hard.

Kairi blinked in astonishment. “Riku, what…?”

“Ahhhh…!” He stuck out his tongue and rubbed it furiously with his sleeve, then reached across the table and grabbed Kairi’s fruit salad, slurping some of the juice out of it. “Oh, my God. The pudding is _rancid,_ it tastes like a dairy died!”

Picking up the pudding cup, Kairi cautiously sniffed it, recoiling a second later with a choke. “Oh. Wow. Oh, no, that’s awful.”

With a long groan, Riku lowered his head to the table. “I wonder how long that pudding was hidden away like that…?”

 _“Oh.”_ Kairi sounded uneasy. When Riku lifted his head enough to look at her, she was staring at the underside of the pudding cup. “Yeah, the expiration date is…” She glanced over at Riku, then set the cup down to one side. “…Never mind. Just… don’t eat anymore of it.”

With another groan, Riku hid his face back behind his arm. Oh, _man,_ the taste in his mouth was unpleasant. This had to be his quota for terrible luck for the day, _surely._

Fate seemed to disagree. He got zero warning before his chair broke. All of a sudden, he was on his back, staring up at the fluorescent lights of the cafeteria with his hair spread around his head like a halo, one leg sticking into the air. He heard Kairi shriek, _“Riku!”_ and her red-haired, wide-eyed visage was in his line of vision a few moments later. “Are you okay!?”

“…Ouch.” He’d slammed his head pretty hard against the tiles. When he tried to sit up, Kairi let out a small cry and covered her mouth with her hands.

“Riku! There’s blood!”

Alarmed, he reached behind his head and felt around. His fingers met with a rapidly swelling knot, and a warm dampness. Bringing his hand in front of his eyes, he closed his fingers several times over the red gleam until it turned sticky. “…I am having,” he commented unsteadily, “a _really bad day.”_

Concern stamped all over her face, Kairi helped him to his feet, curling one of his arms over her shoulders and grabbing his bag for him. “All right, that’s it. I am taking you to the emergency room, _right now.”_

“Kairi… I’m okay, it’s not so bad…”

She was having none of his excuses. “Riku,” she firmly repeated, “I am _taking_ you to the _emergency room.”_

Meekly, he shut up and capitulated. Maybe it wasn’t such a bad idea. And anyway, it wasn’t like he had a lecture to get to.

.o.O.o.

The trip to the emergency room… didn’t go all that well.

The moment they headed out in Kairi’s little car, they hit traffic so thick and slow it took them forty minutes just to get to the end of the block. They could have walked the five miles to the general hospital and gotten there sooner. Kairi was fuming with impatience by the time they finally arrived, with Riku holding a bundle of tissues from her purse against the back of his head. He couldn’t tell if the dizziness he was feeling was from hitting his head or all the exhaust fumes he’d had to inhale in the traffic, after Kairi’s air conditioning randomly died and forced them to open the windows to prevent the air in the car from turning uncomfortably stale.

Once they were on hospital property, the next issue became finding a parking space. Around and around they drove, until finally they snagged a spot as someone was leaving. At this point, an hour and a half had passed since they’d left campus. Kairi led the way into the ER, sitting Riku down and going to arrange things with the triage nurse on his behalf. It seemed to take an inordinately long time, and when Kairi eventually returned to him, she looked exhausted.

“They didn’t want to take you because we haven’t got your insurance details.” Riku again thought of his missing wallet and winced. “It’s okay, though – I got them to call HBU, and eventually they handed over your details when I threatened to sue them for the chair breaking and injuring you.”

Riku grinned a little at the girl’s tenacity. Nobody messed with Kairi’s friends; she was a ferocious mother hen. “Thanks, Kairi.”

And then, they waited. And they waited. And… they _waited._ Several times, Kairi popped up to go ask when someone would see Riku, and each time she was told “Soon”. Riku could feel her seething next to him, checking every now and again on the state of his head, which throbbed painfully. Whenever she removed the tissues, more blood would come oozing out. It was a cut that didn’t want to close.

Eventually, someone appeared, and took Riku into a sterile area to inspect the wound. Tutting, the doctor told him, “This is going to need stitches.” She then proceeded to shave a patch of Riku’s hair off in order to do so. When it was all done, Kairi gingerly tied the rest of his hair into a loose ponytail to hide the bald spot. When they wearily stepped outside the hospital, hand in hand, night had fallen.

The drive back to the campus was a quiet one. Riku wasn’t in pain anymore because of the medication he’d been given, but he was just… so tired. So ridiculously tired. Still, he would probably still be bleeding slowly over everything if it wasn’t for Kairi, and so it was with heartfelt gratitude that he turned to her and started, “Hey, Kairi –” She glanced over at him, but Riku was no longer looking at her. “Jesus _shit!”_

He lunged across and grabbed the wheel, wrenching it towards himself as a car came speeding towards them through a red light, its headlights dowsing the interior of Kairi’s car. Everything became a blur as the car swerved off course, Kairi screaming, horns blaring, followed by a bone-shuddering crash.

It took a little while for the world to stop seeming like it was spinning, by which point passers-by and other motorists were opening the car’s doors, worried faces and voices reaching Riku through a daze. He was helped out of the vehicle, and it was only as the cold night air started to clear his head that he thought of his best friend.

“Kairi!” He turned to search for her, going weak with relief at the sight of her standing a short distance away, looking pale and shaken but otherwise unharmed. He staggered over, grabbing her by the shoulders. “Are you all right? _Are you all right?”_

She nodded, expression shocked, and he folded her into a tight hug. Turning, he demanded of the small crowd, with rising anger, “Who’s the asshole who was in the other car?”

Nervously, a man stepped forward. “I – I’m so sorry. I –”

“Sorry?” Riku snapped, furiously. “You could’ve _killed_ us!”

“I tried to stop,” the guy pitifully explained, “but my brakes didn’t work. I swear it. I didn’t run that light on purpose.”

Riku stared at him, realising that this was the second time today that someone was swearing that something that had nearly been pretty fucking dangerous had been an accident out of their control. Only this time, Kairi had been involved, and it _really_ could’ve been fatal. It was amazing that neither of them had been hurt. Looking over at Kairi’s car, he saw that they had smashed into the traffic light pole on the other side of the intersection. The entire front right half of the hood was crushed. If it had gone any further, _Riku_ might have been crushed right along with it. He felt himself quiver. This was going way beyond any ‘bad day’ he’d had before. With a sinking feeling, he thought back to the crone in the mirror store. Hadn’t she – said something about making him pay? And between that and the darkness… and everything that had happened since then…

For now, he held Kairi tightly, glad that she hadn’t been hurt. Contemplation about crazy mirror stores and their owners could wait for later.

.o.O.o.

Somehow, Riku managed to get back to his dorm late that night and topple into bed without any further disasters befalling him. He had nightmares, though – horrible nightmares about old women surrounded by darkness, and a featureless white face moaning his name. He woke early, in a cold sweat, already reaching for his phone. He had forgotten about the white face in the mirror. Dreaming about it made him realise something: if he really _had_ been in that store yesterday, then the pictures he took would still be on his phone.

He navigated to his gallery quickly, and, after a moment’s searching, felt a wave of goose-bumps sweep his body. It was here, plain as the daylight slowly spilling through his dorm room window: the mirror. First the dark picture, then the one with the flash – and… the face.

Feeling faint, Riku lay back down for a few minutes, mind racing. _It had actually happened._ He _had_ been inside the mirror store, and something had _happened_ while he was in there. He _had_ managed to smash the mirror, the old woman _had_ showed up, had left the dark bruise on his wrist, and had – attacked him somehow. With what, he still didn’t know. It defied all sense and logic. But the fact remained that since that moment, since he had found himself abruptly outside as though nothing had happened, _everything_ had been going wrong. Yesterday hadn’t just been a bad day – it had been a catastrophic sequence of events almost maliciously designed to make him suffer, if not outright kill him. And Kairi, for the crime of being a good friend, had got caught up in it with him. As it was, she was without a car now. Her insurance would cover the damage, but it had been a terrifying experience for her, and she had narrowly avoided serious injury. If that had happened because of… because of…

The words _‘some curse’_ ran through his head before he could catch them, making him shiver. He was a reasonable guy, not given to paranoia or attacks of imagination, but… he was having a hard time shaking those words free.

A curse. Was that what this was?

And if so… what the hell was he supposed to do about it?

.o.O.o.

Rumour had it that there was a psychic on campus. Riku had heard it in passing and laughed it off, just like everyone else, because come on – whoever was claiming _that_ was obviously off their freaking nut. But since his experiences following his disastrous visit to the mirror store yesterday, Riku was feeling a little more… open-minded about such things. That, and desperate.

In casual conversation with Tidus, he managed to learn that Wakka knew more about it than he did, and Wakka directed him to Selphie, who’d told _him_ all about it, who informed Riku that a girl who worked at the library knew the resident HBU psychic personally.

Feeling a weird combination of both extremely silly and somewhat nervous, Riku made his way to the campus library. It was vast and quiet, Riku clearing his throat anxiously as he walked up to the front desk. “Hi,” he said quietly, the librarian on duty looking up with a friendly smile. “Is – is Yuffie working today?”

“Sure am!” A loud, bright voice piped up from off to the side of the desk, a short, energetic girl bouncing up from where she’d been loading books onto the bottom of a cart. She brushed her hands on her shorts and came over expectantly. “What can I do you for? Do we know each other? I don’t remember meeting you before.”

Uneasy at the volume at which she spoke in the hushed environment, Riku answered, “Um, no, we haven’t met, but I was told to come speak with you. Uh – can we go somewhere we won’t be… overheard?”

She gave him a squinting look up and down. “Hmm.” After a moment’s thought, she came to a quick decision. “Okay! Belle, I’m taking my break. Be back soon!”

Yuffie pranced ahead, Riku struggling to keep up as she headed upstairs and over to a bank of vending machines. “All right, cutie. Buy me a drink and I’m allll yours!” she promised, with an exaggeratedly suggestive wink. Riku floundered.

“I’m… I’m sorry, but I lost my wallet yesterday…”

She dimmed. “Aw. Well, never mind, then. And I was kidding about the ‘all yours’ part anyway, I have a boyfriend.” She bought her own drink, and, popping the can open, said, “Well, I guess I can talk, at least. Who sent you to me, and why?”

Riku hesitated, then gave short, tense laugh. “Ah, it’s kind of a funny story.” She waited as he attempted to find something funny about it all, before giving up after several long, awkwardly silent moments. “Well… anyway… The reason I’m here is because…” He fidgeted, Yuffie rolling her eyes and gesturing for him to continue.

“It’s okay, I won’t bite your head off. Go on, go on, I don’t have all day!”

Clearing his throat, Riku reluctantly said, “I’ve been having these – problems, since… since something weird happened to me yesterday, and I was just wondering…”

 He trailed off, the girl nodding in a circular motion, prompting, “You were wonderiiiing?”

“…I was told that you know the college psychic.” He said it in a rushed mutter, almost hoping she’d mishear and he could chicken out when she asked for him to repeat himself. But nope – she heard him, all right.

Her eyes narrowed slightly, the suspicion bubbling back up. “Hmm.” She gave him another up-and-down scrutinising. “Why? What’re these big, psychic-requiring problems you’ve got?”

Riku hesitated, then figured that, even if she thought he was weird, honesty was the best policy. “Bad things have been happening. I keep either nearly getting hurt, or actually getting hurt, and last night my friend and I were in a car crash, and I think – I think it has to do with some creepy old lady in a mirror store. I might… I might be cursed.”

Yuffie blinked, her mouth hanging slightly open. “…Well,” she said at last, after letting it all sink in. “I would definitely say that that warrants some psychic intervention. _If_ it’s true.” Before Riku could argue that it definitely _was,_ she shrugged and added, “Oh, well – he’ll know if it is or not. He’s pretty good.”

“He?” Somehow, Riku had been expecting some misty-eyed, flower-child girl with tarot cards. Well, a guy could still be a misty-eyed flower-child with tarot cards, he supposed.

“His name’s Sora,” Yuffie told him, before perkily adding, “He works here! I can get him for you right now.” Riku experienced a moment’s panic. He hadn’t expected to be meeting the psychic so quickly. He wasn’t – mentally prepared for this. Seeing his hesitation, Yuffie archly asked, “You do _have_ a problem, don’tyou? You’re not with the school paper looking for a crackpot story, right?”

Earnestly, Riku shook his head. “No, I – I definitely have a problem.”

“Well, then, you wait here and I’ll go get Sora.” She wasn’t really giving him the option of saying ‘no’. Swallowing, Riku feebly nodded, and Yuffie bounced off to find ‘Psychic Sora’. Ugh, why had he thought about the guy’s name like that? Now he wouldn’t be able to get ‘Psychic Sora’ out of his head.

There were some chairs and tables by the vending machines, so Riku carefully took a seat, testing it first to make sure it would hold him. His head still stung like a bitch after yesterday’s little fall – he wasn’t keen to go through that all over again. Once seated, however, he became rapidly restless. It was hard to just sit in place and wait for a _psychic_ to show up, and he’d been on edge since last night. Not only that, but having the face in the mirror confirmed this morning had been… a rattling experience. The fact that he’d been _reduced_ to this, to seeking help from someone who very likely just had an overactive imagination and a penchant for the occult left him feeling squirmy.

Glancing over at the wall of vending machines, he felt temptation arise. He hadn’t eaten yet this morning – he didn’t trust anything at the cafeteria right now – but… something from the machines might be okay. It’d be hard for, say, a granola bar to mess him up. Well, unless it were to get lodged in his windpipe… but if he started thinking like that, he’d go crazy and starve to death. And it wasn’t like _everything_ could be potentially lethal – right?

With no sign of Yuffie returning yet, Riku made up his mind to buy something. Despite what he’d told Yuffie, he was certain that he’d spied a few coins when he and Kairi had gone through his stuff yesterday. After a minute of digging through his bag, sure enough, he was able to scrape together a couple of dollars. Not enough for a granola bar, but enough for at least a soda. It was… well, it was something. Riku fed the coins into the machine and pressed the button for a drink – and nothing happened.

Exasperated, he hammered it several more times, muttering, “I don’t believe this.” Of _course_ the machine stole his money and gave nothing in return. “Just – _great.”_

He heard a soft chuckle from behind him. “You chose a bad machine. That one’s notorious for it.” Riku looked over his shoulder and found a boy with brown, spiky hair and blue eyes smiling kindly. Pointing over to the one next to it, he said, “That’s the old reliable there – it never takes without at least _something_ in return.”

Sighing, Riku replied, “Well, that was all the change I had. So I guess I’ll have to remember that for next time.”

“Ouch. Bad luck.” The boy reached into his pocket and removed a ten-dollar bill. He stepped around Riku and let ‘the old reliable’ take it. “What can I get you?”  Riku blinked, shook his head, the boy saying, “No? Nothing? I’m getting something for me anyway, so you might as well make your bid. If you don’t say what you want, I’ll just have to guess.”

“A… s-soda,” he answered. “Please. And – thanks.”

The boy pushed the button, and, sure enough, the drink dropped down with a clatter. He bent and grabbed it out, handing it over to Riku with another broad smile. “You’re welcome,” he said simply. He got himself an iced coffee, tearing open the straw’s packaging with his teeth and poking it through the hole in the top. “Want to sit?” he offered. Riku reluctantly shook his head.

“Sorry. I’m waiting for someone.”

The boy’s smile reached high enough to make his eyes crinkle as he gave a slight laugh. “Uh, I should introduce myself.” He held out a hand. “I’m Sora. It’s nice to meet you. Yuffie never gave me your name.”

Riku stared for a long moment. This – was the psychic guy? Psychic Sora? But – he looked so _normal._ He was wearing faded jeans and a red hoodie, and had… a nice face, nice smile, nice voice – a lot of nice there – but he also spoke directly, and just – Riku had not been expecting this. No, he had not.

Abruptly aware that he was gaping like an idiot, he hastily grasped the guy’s hand and shook. “Uh – Riku. Nice to meet you, too.”

Gesturing to the tables and chairs, Sora asked, “So? Want to?” Riku nodded mutely, and together they went over and sat down. Watery sunlight lit the room, giving the library a calm feel, a sense that was increased by the immense tranquillity this Sora guy gave off. Already, Riku was starting to feel a little less on edge. As they settled, Sora smiled again, seeming to be filled with an endless supply of them, and Riku felt a tentative curve of his own lips in response.

And then his soda exploded.

It just – erupted, everywhere, the second he put it down. He and Sora both jumped up, Sora exclaiming, _“Ohh!”_ He glanced around. “I’ll – go get something to wipe that up,” he said, before hurrying off, leaving his drink on the table. Grimacing, Riku did his best to shake himself off. Luckily, his hair was still tied back, to cover his new bald spot, so not a lot of it had been hit. But he could feel the cold fluid trickling down the front of his shirt, and knew he was going to be extremely sticky for a couple of hours. He glared at the offending can, which now sat looking perfectly harmless and innocent in the wake of its ambush. He resentfully flipped it off.

Before too long, Sora returned with a handful of paper towels from the bathroom. “Man, that thing must’ve been shook up something fierce!” he commented with surprise, doing his best to start soaking up the mess. Riku scowled, accepting the piece that Sora offered him and wiping his face and neck.

“Yeah. I guess so.”

Detecting his dark tone, Sora glanced over. “Um, so – how about while I clean up, you tell me what your problem is? It’s rare for someone to seek me out like this.”

Riku studied him for a long moment. “You’re really – you know. Psychic?”

Sora shrugged a little. “It’s sort of a gift, sort of not. It runs in the family. I see some things, I feel some things. Why? Yuffie said you told her bad things have been happening, and you think it’s something I could help with?”

Riku nodded. “It’s – all pretty crazy,” he muttered. When Sora gave him an expectant look, waiting for him to elaborate, he took a deep breath and, steeling himself for possible mockery, embarked upon the explanation. He told Sora everything that had happened – the mirror store, the antique he broke, the old lady, and all the weird things that happened from there, culminating in the near-miss he and Kairi had driving back from the hospital. By the time he was done, Sora had finished mopping up the soda, and sat on a chair looking grave.

“That sounds pretty shady,” he soberly remarked. “And that’s probably why you chose the change-eating machine and then got soda all over you, right?”

Riku half-heartedly shrugged. “That part sounds kind of lame, compared to everything else, but – yeah, probably.”

Sora beckoned him over to sit down in the chair next to him. “Come here. I believe you. I’ll see what I can sense, okay?”

Warily, Riku did as he was bidden. Sitting awkwardly beside Sora, he asked, “Okay – what do I have to do?”

“Just give me your hands, Riku. I’ll do the rest.”

Uncertainly, Riku held his hands out. Sora took them and held them lightly, gave him a reassuring smile, then closed his eyes and seemed to concentrate. As he did, Riku took the few, silent minutes to get a good look at him. He noticed that Sora had long, pretty eyelashes. The shape of his face was attractive, and his hair looked soft. His hands were pleasant, too – they were warm, grasping him firmly without feeling the need to squeeze. Riku wondered why he hadn’t seen him around before, because Sora, on closer inspection, was someone he was sure he’d remember.

At last, Sora slowly exhaled, and opened his eyes. When he looked up at Riku, he appeared troubled. “There’s a darkness in you. It’s deep, and it’s dangerous.”

Riku blanched. Even knowing that something was up, hearing it stated so plainly caught him off-guard. “Wh-what? Are you sure?”

Sora was grim. “Absolutely certain. It’s powerful, and just – everywhere. It’s all through you. Riku, tell me, how do you feel? Do you feel… okay?”

Well, not anymore. He felt positively spooked. But he spent a moment taking stock. “Well, I mean, I’ve felt a little _off_ since yesterday, I guess. My chest was sore for a while, and I felt sick, but I don’t know how much of the nausea was from that pudding. Why? _Am_ I okay?” He felt a chill of fear at the seriousness on Sora’s face.

The guy gave him a cautious, appraising look. “You seem all right, more or less. You’re a little pale, and a little dark under the eyes, but considering the last twenty-four hours, I’m not all that surprised by that.” His mouth quirked thoughtfully. “You said… that the old woman told you ‘you’ll pay for seven years’, right?” He considered this when Riku nodded. “Maybe – maybe the reason there’s so much darkness is because it’s seven years’ worth.”

With a sharp breath, Riku demanded, “So – this is going to keep happening? All this – terrible luck? For _seven years?”_ He felt a moment’s blind terror at the thought. _Seven years?_ He’d barely got through a day! How in the hell was he meant to survive for seven years like this!?

Eager to soothe him, Sora made a calming gesture with his hands. “Hey, hey, it’s okay – breathe, Riku. I’m not going to let that happen. You did the right thing in seeking me out, I’m going to do everything I can to make it right.”

Desperate for hope, Riku demanded, “So you can do something about this? You can get it out of me?”

Sora… didn’t look so sure. “Well, I don’t know if _I_ have the ability, personally… That’s not really my thing, you know? I’ve got some fey in me, and that’s about all. But, before you go looking all disappointed – I know _one_ place we could start trying to fix this whole mess.”

“Where? I’ll do anything,” Riku frantically vowed.

Sora smiled. “That’s good! Good. Hold on to that determination, because, uh, we’re going to go back to that mirror store, and you’re going to formally apologise to the old lady.” Riku stared for so long that Sora started to fidget. At length, he asked, “Do you have a _better_ idea?”

Inhaling slowly, Riku looked over at the window. In a faded voice, he heard himself say, “…I’m ready whenever you are.”

 


	2. Shattered Pt 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After a fateful visit to a store filled with mirrors, Riku is haunted by a rash of bad luck that goes so far as to threaten his life. With nowhere else to turn, he eventually tracks down Sora, but whether Sora can help him or not is another matter entirely...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Shattered  
> Main pairing: RiSo  
> Rating: T  
> Word count: 9297  
> AO3 collection: http://archiveofourown.org/collections/AkuRokuRiSo_Month  
> Prompter: wordsebbandflow (tumblr)

Understanding that these were extreme circumstances, Sora begged off the rest of his work shift, Yuffie promising, with a curious glance between them, to cover for him.

They stood now at the bus shelter outside of HBU, Riku extremely uneasy about the prospect of heading into downtown Hollow Bastion. “The last time I got into a car, we got into a crash,” he muttered to Sora, tugging on his sleeve and speaking into his ear so none of the other students waiting for the bus could hear his crazy chatter. “If I get on this bus… Sora, what’s going to happen to all these people?”

Sora looked up at him with a slight smile. “It’ll be okay,” he whispered back. “I’m here with you. I’ll combat it with everything I’ve got. Okay?” He held up his fists in a mock fighting stance, adopting a fierce expression designed to lighten Riku’s mood. But, while he did think that Sora looked extraordinarily cute like that, Riku just couldn’t shake this worry. He and Kairi had managed to avoid serious injury because he’d seen it coming at the last possible second and altered their course; he wouldn’t have that option on a bus.

Still, they had to get downtown if Sora’s idea was going to work, and walking wasn’t an option. It’d be too easy for some random car – or even the bus he was planning to catch right now – to swerve a little and knock him down. With Sora beside him, he didn’t like that idea any more than the threat of being on the bus. At least this way, he reasoned to himself, he chanced getting there faster.

Still, Sora seemed reasonably confident. “It’ll be okay,” he repeated, and startled Riku by taking his hand and giving it a gentle squeeze. “Just stick with me.” When Riku stammered a little and looked down at their joined hands, Sora, looking unsure, asked, “I’m sorry – does this make you uncomfortable? It’s just that it works better this way. I can keep the darkness back if we’re touching.”

“No! No, it doesn’t make me… uncomfortable.” If anything, it made Riku feel – warm inside. He darted a look around the bus shelter, the idea occurring to him that anyone who looked at them like this would think they were _together_. Somehow, that thought gave him a little rush. To show Sora just how un-uncomfortable he was with the arrangement, he gripped the guy’s hand a little tighter, and, when the bus came, they climbed the stairs side by side. Moving down the aisle in this fashion was a little trickier, but once they were seated it was quite cosy. Sort of – pleasant, really. Almost like going on a date.

To… a mirror store. With a crazy, witch-like owner. To beg for her forgiveness so that she might remove the darkness she had punched into him. Right. Super romantic.

He chanced a little sideways glance at Sora, who was by the window, and found a half-smile on the guy’s lips as he gazed out at the passing world. Well… at least he was okay with all this. That was good. And, amazingly, Riku got through the bus ride in one piece, without a single thing having gone wrong. Every now and then he and Sora had to adjust their grip on one another a little, but otherwise everything was – good.

They descended to the street at the stop nearest to the mirror store, on the outskirts of the commercial district. Luckily, even though Riku had only been to the place once, it was easy to locate again because of the wall that overshadowed it. At the top of the hill, he and Sora gazed down, Riku lifting his free hand to point. “There. See the sign?”

“Sure do. You ready?” Sora’s eyes had narrowed slightly, but otherwise he kept his light-hearted calm, which Riku used to steady himself. Without Sora, he’d have been a nervous wreck by now. _With_ Sora, he felt like he do this.

Hands clasped, they made their way downhill until they came to a halt outside the mirror store. Sora scanned the outside of the shop closely, while Riku felt his nerves tighten.

“Shall we?” Sora prompted, and reluctantly, Riku stepped inside with him. It was open again, like yesterday, and similarly just as empty. Swallowing thickly, Riku looked around for the old woman who had yelled at him. Sora, too, was peering this way and that. “Hmm. No one here. Wanna look around?”

They ventured down the aisle that Riku had walked along yesterday, the mirrors reflecting their faces back at them. Down at the end, there stood a blank space where the antique mirror Riku had broken had stood. He stopped a few feet away, eyeing the area. “It was here,” he told Sora, with dread in his voice. “I took two photos of it, then when I saw… the face… I dropped my phone, and knocked the mirror when I stood back up.”

“Can I see? The picture with the face?” Riku fumbled to get his phone and swipe to the correct image. He held it up to show Sora, who frowned. Glancing over at where Riku had pointed to, he nodded slowly. “Yeah, that’s the same place, all right. And talk about spooky. What kind of a mirror _was_ that?”

“I have no idea, and I don’t think I want to,” Riku unhappily replied. “Whatever it was, it was _freaky.”_

“No wonder you dropped your phone,” Sora murmured. He then tilted his head on a slight angle, peering more closely at the photo. “Hmm. But you know, even though the two places look the same… there’s something a bit different about it.”

“Different?” Uncomprehendingly, Riku frowned at the image.

“Yeah.” Sora gazed around carefully, before lifting his eyes to the ceiling. “It’s really dark in your photos, but this place seems a lot lighter today.”

Mimicking Sora, Riku looked around. Now that he mentioned it – it _did_ look a little brighter than he remembered. The overhead lights that had been too feeble for the first photograph seemed stronger today, like maybe the bulbs had been replaced. That’d be a weird coincidence, though, wouldn’t it?

“Hey, I’ve got an idea. May I?” Sora reached for Riku’s phone, who handed it over curiously. Suddenly, Sora moved close – so close that their cheeks were nearly touching. He then lifted Riku’s phone, reversed the camera, and grinned. “Say ‘cheese’!” While Riku was still gawping, Sora took a photo. He then lowered the phone to inspect the picture. After a moment, he let out a soft, triumphant, “I knew it!” He held it up to show Riku, who was still distracted by how close he was. “See?”

Riku forced himself to focus, then promptly frowned. “Hey – it’s lighter. It’s a normal picture.”

“Without the flash,” Sora pointed out. He swiped back to Riku’s first attempt to photograph the mirror, and again said, “See?”

…He was right. When Riku had tried taking that picture, the whole thing had been murky. It was a series of dim lines that you could only barely make out by straining your eyes. The picture he and Sora had just taken, on the other hand… was crystal clear. The lighting might not have been _great_ in the store, but neither was it negligent. You could take a photo just fine.

“Maybe it’s because we’re facing the windows,” Riku dubiously suggested. “More light exposure or something.”

“Let’s test!” Sora turned them around, and for good measure took a few steps back into the area where the mirror had been poised on its stand. Pressing their faces together again, Sora cheerfully cried, “Cheeeese!”

Riku’s awkward half-smile was painful to look at… but you could see it. Clear as day. No flash required.

“What… does this mean?” he wondered. Before Sora could answer, they were both startled by the appearance of a middle-aged woman. She stepped out from a back room, blinking at them, and approached with a polite smile.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t hear you boys come in. Can I help you with something?”

Sora glanced up at Riku, who shook his head slightly. This was definitely not the same woman from yesterday. Sora stepped forward, giving a return smile of his own. “Good morning, ma’am. We’ve just been looking around, trying to find a good mirror for our dorm room. My friend over here,” he tossed his head towards Riku, “has pretty specific tastes, though. Do you stock any antiques, by any chance?”

She looked mildly surprised. “Antiques? Oh, my, no. As you can see,” she waved a hand at their surroundings, “we stock a wide variety of mirrors, but they’re all completely new. You’d want an antique store for that, dear,” she added, to Riku.

Sora’s smile froze a little. “Oh. And you’ve – never stocked antiques? Not even for a while?”

She shook her head firmly. “I’m afraid not. We’re just not that type of a store.”

“Do you clean mirrors, ma’am?” Riku broke in, drawing her attention.

“Well, yes,” she answered. “We have a service for that. My husband uses a particular polish –”

“Is there anyone else that runs this store with you?” Sora asked, the woman blinking and twisting her head back to him. She was beginning to grow flustered by the barrage of questions.

“Besides my husband? No. This is our store. We can’t afford help, either, so if that’s what you boys are here for, I’m sorry. With the way the economy’s been…”

“What about an old woman? Your mother, maybe? Someone’s grandma?” Riku pressed. When the woman looked confused, he went on doggedly, “Look, I was in here yesterday, and there was an old woman working here. I know she was.”

“Well, I don’t know which mirror store you were in, but it wasn’t ours,” the woman replied, with a hint of defiance. Looking at each of them in turn, she asked, “Are you boys here for a mirror or not?”

After a brief silence, Riku confessed, “I’m the one who broke the mirror yesterday.” The woman eyed him strangely.

“I beg your pardon?”

“I was in here yesterday, looking for a new mirror, and you had a big, old mirror set up on a stand, right where I’m standing. I accidentally knocked it over, and it broke.” The woman was looking at him blankly now. Feeling his frustration rising, Riku asked, “It was here for cleaning, right? Then, in that case, the woman I met was the owner of that mirror. I’d like to meet her, please, ma’am. I’d like to apologise properly, in person, and offer reparations. She was – _really_ upset about her mirror, and I am _really_ sorry that I broke it.”

“We haven’t had any mirrors like that brought in for cleaning,” the woman told him firmly. “And no old women, either. I think you must be mistaken, young man. Now, I think I’m going to have to ask you to leave, right away, before I’m forced to call my husband out.”

“But – _please -!”_

“Riku…” He stopped as Sora laid a hand against his shoulder. Giving him a sympathetic look, he softly said, “Let’s go, okay? I don’t think we’re going to find her here.”

Riku stared at him helplessly for a moment, not ready to give in. “But… It _was_ here…”

“Come on. Let’s talk about this somewhere else – okay?” Sora’s searching gaze touched his desperation, silently promising that they weren’t out of options, and after a moment he gave a despondent nod. Turning to the woman, Sora apologised, “I’m sorry, ma’am, we obviously made a mistake. We won’t bother you again.” He then led Riku out of the store, once again grasping his hand.

Once they were back up at the top of the hill, Sora found a short alleyway for them to briefly retreat into. Turning to Riku, giving his shoulders a bracing rub, he asked, “You okay? Still with me, Riku?” Riku glumly nodded, Sora grimacing, understanding his bewilderment and disappointment. It wasn’t even like Riku had really expected anything much to come of this – that old lady yesterday had been way too crazy for a sensible talk, let alone an apology – but even so, he hadn’t expected for it to end like _this._ Like… like none of it had ever even been there. Like yesterday barely existed.

“It really did happen,” he told Sora, to which the boy nodded.

“I know. Not only did I believe you anyway, but you’ve got that picture, too.”

Riku stiffened in dismay. “The picture! Oh, man, I should’ve shown it to her…”

But Sora shook his head. “I don’t think she ever knew it was there. She was being totally truthful when she was answering our questions, I couldn’t sense any deceit or anything from her, and believe me, I was tuned in. I was tuned in to the whole shop – but nothing was coming back. Nothing out of the ordinary, anyway.”

“What, then?” Riku demanded, thoroughly sick of the mystery of it all. “How could it have been there yesterday, but there be no trace or even _memory_ of it today?”

“Maybe that’s it,” Sora mused, folding his hands behind his head as he thought. “Maybe it’s the _memory_ that’s gone. What if the mirror _was_ there, and it _was_ supposed to be cleaned, but when you broke it, it disappeared?”

“From _existence?”_ Riku sceptically asked. Sora shrugged.

“Maybe? Maybe the old woman you saw was its owner… Or, maybe she was part of the mirror. Considering how dark the place was, and what was done to you, there was a serious dark power inside it – then, when you broke it, you made her angry. Some… spirit inside the mirror, or around the mirror. Whoever she was, I can figure out this much: she is definitely the source of all that darkness. The darkness of the mirror’s glass, the darkness in the store, the darkness in you – they’re all connected to _her.”_

“And, what? Once the mirror was smashed, she was gone? And when she was gone, all memories of her were gone?” Riku shook his head, scraping a hand through his hair without thinking. “That’s _nut – ow!”_ He had bumped the bandage that lay over the cut at the back of his head, wincing as the pain shot through his scalp.

“Hey,” Sora said, slipping a hand back into his. “How about we go get some lunch and sort this out – hm?”

Riku sighed. “Yeah. Okay.” Fifteen minutes later, however, he wanted to hide himself away with embarrassment. “I’m… really sorry,” he mumbled as, once again, Sora was going to have to pay for him. “When I get my wallet back, I’ll definitely reimburse you.”

“It’s okay, Riku.” Sora darted him a warm smile. “It’s my treat. You deserve it.”

They were in a small restaurant off the main downtown thoroughfare, in a booth by the window. Sora had chosen it, when they’d been asked where they wanted to sit. “The more light, the better,” he had confidently prescribed. When the waitress had brought the menus over, though, Riku had been struck all over again by his sudden lack of cash.

“I swear, I’m not normally a mooch,” he helplessly told Sora, who waved him off with a laugh.

“Riku, believe it or not – and feel free to hate me a little for saying this – but I’m kind of having a good time. I like spending time with you.” With another of his patented smiles, the kind that Riku was beginning to think were for Sora’s face and Sora’s face only, he said, “You’re a good guy. I can feel it. Meeting you is…” He stopped, then appeared to rephrase: “I’m glad that I met you.”

Riku felt his misery stir, lightening a little from its settled state in the pit of his stomach. “I – I don’t hate you for something like that,” he muttered, and somehow this made the other boy beam. He gave Sora a crooked smile of his own, and tried to choose something cheap from the menu.

While they were waiting for their food, Sora asked, “Is your head okay?”

Resisting the urge to touch the bandage, Riku nodded. “Yeah. It stings, but I’ll live.”

Losing some of his energy, Sora said, “Sorry that it didn’t work out in the store.”

With more than a little hopelessness, Riku asked heavily, “So, what do we do now? If I can’t find the old woman who did this to me, and if the lady at the mirror place can’t even remember _having_ the mirror, how am I supposed to make this right?”

Sora placed his fingertips together and pressed them thoughtfully to his lips, distracting Riku momentarily from his despair by the way the gesture drew attention to his mouth. “I think,” Sora said slowly, encouraging him back to the here-and-now, “that we need to let the idea of finding the woman from the mirror go. It was only my first idea,” he hastened to add, before Riku could sag in disbelief. “I have more than one! I have – two.” He grinned sheepishly, and Riku, despite himself, couldn’t help but try to grin back. It was a ridiculous, insane situation, but at least Sora was trying. He couldn’t ask for more than that.

“All right, then. What’s Plan B?”

“Not really ‘Plan B’,” Sora answered, “so much as ‘what’s behind Door Number Two’. I don’t want you feeling like this is the backup plan. That first idea probably wasn’t going to work, even if we _had_ found the old woman from the mirror.” So, he’d thought the same as Riku, then. Some old hag who had cursed him in the first place and left his wrist black and blue probably wasn’t going to be open to conciliation. “Instead,” Sora continued, “what I’d like to do is find something to counter the darkness in you.”

Riku blinked. “What, so we just – leave it there? All that darkness?” He didn’t like the thought of entertaining that idea. “What would it do to me, though? I… I don’t know, Sora…”

“What it _would_ do is what it’s _already_ doing,” the boy answered, “which is making you suffer. If the old woman cursed you with seven years’ bad luck, then that’s what it’s there for. Maybe over the span of seven years it’ll naturally leave your body – I don’t know. But if you have something to counteract it, you should be able to live a perfectly normal life, without being afraid of it.”

“What kind of something?” Riku dejectedly asked. Sora’s eyes shone.

“A lucky charm.”

Riku arched an eyebrow. “What, like – some dead rabbit’s mangy foot? Or a four-leaf clover?”

Sora snorted. “Pfft. No. I didn’t say ‘superstitious crap’, I said a _lucky charm._ You’ve got all that darkness in you, right? Well, then, what we need in order to counteract is something _light._ If we can find something that’s light-filled, we should be able to protect you from the darkness’ ill effects.”

Riku was hesitant, but wanted so badly to believe that he wasn’t doomed to spending the next seven years dodging deadly bad luck and avoiding loved ones for their own good. “Do you really think it could work?”

Sora gave a rueful grin and an apologetic shrug. “Actually, it was my first idea. I just felt like if the old woman was willing to talk, it’d make our job a _lot_ easier. But, yes, I think it’ll work.” He reached across the table, curling Riku’s hands into his own, a sensation that was almost familiar by now, even if the little jump his insides made each time was far from fading. “I have a _really_ good feeling about this, Riku. I promise. I feel like this is definitely the answer.”

Riku drew a breath, and nodded. Sora was the only one with half a clue here, after all – he wasn’t going to argue with him. “Then… okay. But where do we find a – a ‘light-filled lucky charm’?”

Sora squeezed his hands encouragingly. “As close to home as we can get.”

.o.O.o.

Once they had eaten and Sora had paid, they clasped hands and returned to the college campus by bus again. Once more, no disasters hit along the way. In fact, ever since the soda incident, Riku had been left unmolested – it seemed as if Sora really _was_ able to keep the darkness at bay. That was almost enough to make him relax.

When they got back, Sora requested to be taken to Riku’s room, and so it was with a quickening pulse and drying mouth that he led the way to his and Tidus’ dorm. He tried to keep the nervousness from his expression – and the shadow of eagerness that hovered behind it. _Gah._ Taking Sora to his room, after having lunch together, walking around together… if he tried really hard to ignore all the other stuff, it really, _really_ felt kind of like a date. But he needed to dismiss thoughts like that; Sora was helping him out of the kindness of his heart, he didn’t need to have Riku thinking… inappropriate thoughts about him just because he wanted to see where he slept.

So, with a steadying breath, he set his jaw and concentrated on the issue at hand. Sora’s plan was to find something meaningful to Riku which would effectively act as a barrier against the darkness inside him. It had to be something that he held dear, something significant to him. He needed to wrack his brains for what that item might be. Now wasn’t exactly the time to get distracted by a cute guy. That could come _afterwards._

When they eventually reached Riku’s room, Sora was momentarily distracted by the hole in the wall. With a look of awe, he lightly ran a finger along the broken plaster. Riku winced, muttering, “We are _definitely_ going to get blamed for that.”

“This was the Blitzball’s doing?” Sora recalled, with some amazement.

“It came straight at my head,” Riku grimly confirmed. Sora let out a low whistle, and gave Riku’s hand a light press.

“I’d better not let you go, then,” he stated, flashing a smile. “I’d hate to get you this far just to lose you to some sporting equipment.”

With a weak chuckle, Riku opened the door. Tidus was out, either at classes or Blitz practice, Riku peering around to make sure the room wasn’t a total disaster before inviting Sora in. The boy looked at his surroundings with interest, taking note of the slew of posters of professional and semi-professional blitz players on Tidus’ side of the room, before jokingly saying, “Well, I think I can guess which is _your_ bed.”

Riku weakly chuckled. “So, uh, where do you suggest we start?”

“Well, how about –” Sora moved over towards Riku’s bed, tugging him along with him. However, rather than sitting on the bed itself, the boy lowered onto his knees to peer beneath it.

Riku stared down at him. “Um…” Was he – was he looking for porn or something?

“Don’t you keep, like, a shoe-box under here or something? Stuff from home?” Sora asked, still somehow managing to cling to Riku’s hand even as he swept an arm under the bed in search of Riku’s hidden treasures.

“Oh, that. No, not there.” He gently tugged Sora back up, helping him to his feet, steadying him as he swayed a little. For a moment, the world seemed to slow down. Sora was gazing up into Riku’s face with such an open, sweet expression it made his heart skip a beat. Sora, too, seemed momentarily transfixed. With what seemed like – like tenderness, Sora reached up and brushed a stray lock of hair from Riku’s eyes.

“You have really pretty colouring,” he commented softly. “The silvery hair with the blue-green eyes… I haven’t seen that on anybody else.”

His voice suddenly hoarse and hard to come by, Riku felt his face heating up. The urge swelled up in him to say – _something_. The right thing, somehow, whatever that was. He needed to say, right now, that he wanted to see Sora again, even after all this was dealt with. And… not just out of gratitude or newfound friendship.

He cleared his throat. “Um… listen, Sora… I was thinking…”

Riku’s bad luck, however, was not quite at an end.

Before he could go on, the door banged open, startling the pair out of their tentatively intimate moment. Tidus strode in with a Blitzball under one arm and Wakka behind him, saying loudly, “Yeah, but did you see their _captain?_ I mean –”

He jerked to a halt at the sight of Riku and Sora, his gaze darting between them, face registering first surprise, then, entirely too quickly, sly approval. Apparently too thick-headed to receive the wide-eyed mental pleading that Riku was sending his way, he crowed, “Oh-ho- _ho,_ what do we have _here?”_

Riku realised he and Sora were still clutching one another’s hands, and was on the verge of tearing himself free from Sora’s grip when, apparently quicker on his feet than Riku in moments like this, Sora swivelled, maintaining his hold on Riku’s right hand, and gave a cheery wave. “Hi, there! I’m Sora. I’m Riku’s new boyfriend!”

Riku felt his chest _lurch._ His round eyes now swinging around to Sora, he felt his whole body give an electric tingle. _I’m Riku’s new boyfriend!_ The words bounced around his skull. Meanwhile, Tidus let out a surprised noise.

“Wha – Riku, you met someone and you didn’t _tell_ us? Does Kairi know?”

Riku found his voice, struggling to keep it calm. “Uh, not yet, no. This all happened… kind of fast.”

Scratching his head, Tidus belatedly asked, “Uh, does that mean that we’re – interrupting something, here?”

“You kind of did, actually,” Sora interjected, before Riku could think of a response. He sounded almost like he meant it. Riku blinked over at him, while Tidus gave a sheepish grin and an exaggerated wince.

“Ooh. Sorry about that.” He glanced at Riku, eyebrows raised. “So should I… come back _later,_ maybe?”

“G-good idea,” Riku replied. “Ah…”

With an understanding nod, Tidus lifted a hand. “Say no more, man. I hear ya, loud and clear. I can crash at Wakka’s tonight.” Behind him, Wakka nodded agreeably. “But, hey, why don’t you guys come over later?” Tidus brightly suggested. “Me and the girls were headed over to Wakka’s for drinks tonight, anyway. If nobody even _knows_ about your new guy yet,” this sentence held a hint of accusation, like Riku had been keeping secrets from his closest friends, “then why don’t you come introduce him?”

“That,” Sora broke in, before Riku could answer either way, “sounds like a really great plan. I’d love to meet everyone!”

Riku found himself nodding. “Yeah, sure. We’ll… be by later, then.”

With that decided, Tidus quickly stuffed some clothes and books into a backpack, before he and Wakka beat a hasty retreat. “Don’t lose track of _time,_ now,” was Tidus’ teasing parting words, before shooting Riku a thumbs-up and shutting the door.

Once again, it was just of the two of them, Riku heaving a great breath of relief. Turning to Sora, he said in a rush, “I am – _so sorry_ about all that, he’s usually out a lot more, I wasn’t expecting him to just crash in here, and then you had to pretend to be my boyfriend…” He trailed off, Sora shaking his head with an amused look.

“It’s okay, Riku – relax. It’s not exactly a strain to pretend to be your boyfriend. And anyway, I’d like to meet your friends! If we don’t find anything here, we can ask them later on for hints.”

“Ohh.” So _that_ was why he’d agreed to come along. That made sense.

 Whatever moment had passed between them lay forgotten, for now, as Sora’s request for Riku’s ‘shoebox’ turned out to be fairly accurate. He pulled it out from the closet, though, under his shoes, rather than keeping it under the bed. Tidus wasn’t likely to go digging around his stuff, and so that had seemed like the safest place to keep it.

Sora settled on the bed, patting for Riku to sit across from him and place the shoebox between them. “This would probably be easier if we were back at my parents’ place,” he admitted, pulling off the lid, “since I have a _lot_ more sentimental crap packed away over there… but this will have to do, I guess.”

Together, he and Sora spent the rest of the afternoon sorting through his keepsakes – bottle caps from memorable parties, ticket stubs from movies with friends, a line of photo booth pictures with Kairi; one by one, Sora held onto them, spending several minutes getting a feel for their ability to act as Riku’s lucky charm. So far, nothing had fit the bill. After dismissing the strip of pictures of Riku and Kairi making faces at the camera, Sora gazed at it for a long moment, expression turning pensive. “You seem to have a lot of good times with her,” he observed. “I can feel a lot of love when I look at you together.”

“Um…” Riku felt a moment’s awkward anxiety. “She’s just a friend. Well, I mean, she’s my _best_ friend, but that’s… that’s all.”

When Sora looked up, there was a glimmer of softness in his blue eyes, and a smile to match. “…I know,” was all he said, before carefully setting the photo strip aside and reaching for the next item. Riku watched him, swallowing with some difficulty. Spending so much time around Sora today, he was beginning to feel like he couldn’t quite catch his breath properly anymore. It was a dizzying sensation, if an oddly pleasant one.

The time passed easily with the two of them cross-legged on Riku’s bed. Every now and then, Sora would take breaks to ‘recharge’ and talk to Riku, who was only too happy to while away the hours getting to know this curious boy from the library. He learned all about Sora: that he was from Radiant Garden, that he had a twin attending a different college closer to home, that sometimes the clairvoyant ability skipped a generation, and that his job at the library was a part-time affair to help pay for some of his day-to-day needs. Riku soaked it all in. Sora, in turn, appeared far more interested in hearing him talk about himself, and together they discovered that they had a lot in common. It was a wonder that they’d both been attending the same college for the last two years, but even though they got along so naturally, they’d been drifting right by each other like ships in the night. It occurred to Riku that the old woman from the mirror store would be royally pissed if she knew that her cursing him had led to one of the best people he’d ever met. Despite everything that had happened to him since that event, he was genuinely happy right now.

Eventually, it was a text from Kairi that roused them from their settled state. Feeling his phone buzz against his thigh, Riku tugged it out, only to wince at the sight of her all-caps message.

_‘YOU HAVE A BOYFRIEND AND YOU DIDN’T TELL ME?? TIDUS SPILLED EVERYTHING. GET YOUR BUTT OVER HERE AND BRING HIS, TOO. IT HAD BETTER BE A CUTE ONE. THERE’S FOOD AND BEER XOXO’._

“Uh-oh,” he said, catching Sora’s attention. “We’ve been sprung. Kairi knows about the boyfriend thing and wants us over there as soon as possible.” Glancing out the window, he saw that dusk was already falling.

Sora stretched his arms over his head and grunted. “I think that’s probably best,” he sighed. “I’m not really getting anything sufficient from the things you’ve got here. Sorry,” he added regretfully.

Riku blinked at him in astonishment. _“Sorry?_ Sora – you’re the only reason I got through today unharmed. Yesterday was a total disaster, and today all I got was soda on me. You don’t have _anything_ to apologise for. You’ve given your entire day to me. I owe you so much.”

Looking pleased, if a little bashful, Sora dipped his head and rubbed a hand through his hair. “Well – good. I’m glad that I’ve been able to be helpful.” Extending a hand, he smiled. “We’d better keep holding hands, then – to make sure you keep surviving.”

With a quiet laugh, Riku twisted his fingers into Sora’s, and together they packed away his things and returned the shoebox to the closet.

The short walk to Wakka’s dorm building ten minutes away was fragrant with night blossoms and pricked by emerging stars. The campus lights were coming on bit by bit, as the world lost its colour and became a series of shadows and silhouettes. Being out with Sora, feeling the heat of his palm against his own, Riku felt – pretty euphoric, all things considered. Even though they hadn’t managed to find a lucky charm yet, he wasn’t in the least bit perturbed because Sora was with him. And Sora, in the dim glow of the campus lights, looked genuinely cheerful. That alone sparked enough light inside Riku to keep the darkness at bay for the next _week._

When they arrived at Wakka’s room, Riku sent a glance Sora’s way. “You’re about to get ambushed,” he warned. “You ready?” At Sora’s perfectly oblivious nod, he knocked, then cautiously entered, eyes darting for Kairi.

She was already on her feet and marching over.

Riku stood there with a cringing smile in place, while Kairi’s was of the razor-sharp variety. “Rikuuuu, you made it! And with your _brand new boyfriend, too.”_ She turned to Sora, and the hard set of her lips became something warmer. “It’s so lovely to meet you! I’m Kairi, and I’m _just sorry we didn’t get to meet sooner.”_ This last part was directed once again at Riku, her smile resuming its all-too-toothy appearance.

Sora laughed. “Don’t blame Riku – this all kind of happened in a rush. We haven’t known each other all that long.”

“Well, what matters is that you’re here now,” Kairi grinned, more easily mollified than Riku had expected, both by Sora’s words and probably his overall charm. Excitement bubbling up, she grabbed hold of Sora’s free hand, enthusing, “Come on, come over and say hi to everyone!” She tugged him, and he tugged Riku, who stumbled a step. Noticing that Sora seemed reluctant to let Riku go, Kairi smothered a giggle. “You guys are _the cutest,”_ she beamed, and gladly dragged their little human chain over to where the others were sitting.

Wakka, being captain of the HBU Blitzball team and in his final year of college, had the privilege of his own room, which meant that he had the space for a large armchair and a sofa, with a squat coffee table jammed in between. Crammed onto the table was a collection of chip bowls and six-packs of beer. Sora was introduced to the others, Tidus once again wearing a lecherous grin and sending a nod and a wink Riku’s way so that he lifted his eyes to the ceiling in embarrassment. Sora hid a smile, and proceeded to do an amazing job at fitting in with Riku’s eclectic friends. It was as if he was meant for this, for being part of the group, a missing piece that no one had noticed until just now.

He was also brilliantly adept at fielding questions about his and Riku’s sudden ‘relationship’.

“So, how did you guys meet?” Selphie excitedly asked, as they sat squeezed together on the couch. With Wakka and Kairi on the other side of them, the crush of having four people on the three-seater meant they were pressed together, thighs and shoulders flush, with Riku trying to maintain his cool and not reveal how much it made his heart quicken.

As Riku stammered, “A-ah…” Sora smoothly broke in.

“I work part-time at the library, and Riku needed help with something.” With a glowing smile sideways at him, Sora went on, “We just sort of clicked! I feel like I’ve known him forever.”

If Riku had been having difficulty before, now he just about needed to grip the armrest for support. How… was Sora so cute? And so sunny? And so…

“Aww!” Selphie sounded whimsical, dragging Riku’s dazed attention away from the boy. “The way you two look at each other is just _adorable.”_

Riku coughed nervously, while Sora merely grinned. The night passed in something of a blur after that, with chips and beer consumed and conversation buzzing, until it occurred to Riku that Sora was looking pink in the face, his eyes slightly glassy. “Are you – drunk?” he murmured into Sora’s ear, to which the boy rather tellingly giggled.

“Your breath tickles,” he answered, and that was proof enough for Riku.

Raising a hand to catch everyone’s attention, he announced, “Um, me and Sora are going to get going. We’ve had a long day, and should probably get some rest.”

They all exchanged laughing, knowing looks, which made Riku want to die a little. “Well, you guys have a nice _rest,_ then,” Selphie teased, subtly high-fiving Tidus, who was squashed into the armchair next to her.

Kairi got up to accompany them to the door, giving first Riku, then Sora, a long hug. “You guys have a nice night,” she wished them, with a wink, and Riku could tell he was forgiven for keeping secrets, considering what a total catch Sora appeared to be. She was thrilled for him. Looking over at the guy, who had gone a little rubbery from the alcohol, he wondered if he could turn their pretence into something genuine, somehow. Currently, it was just an act as a result of Tidus having walked in on them holding hands… but Riku was beginning to get the feeling that maybe Sora wouldn’t be so opposed to the idea of – fantasy blending into reality. Maybe that was wishful thinking on his part, but… the tipsy, ear-to-ear smile Sora sent his way, which sent a burst of heat from his chest all the way to his fingertips and toes, gave him hope.

As they exited into the night air outside Wakka’s building, Riku turned to him and asked, “So, where are you living? You’re on-campus, right? I’ll walk you home.”

Sora, however, unsteadily shook his head. “Oh, no, nope, I’m not leaving you alone. I can’t lose you now.” Riku’s breath caught at that. Still shaking his head, Sora gazed up at him, a determined frown on his face. “No, I – I’m going home with _you._ There’s no guarantee that a, that a piano won’t drop on your head if I leave you now. We’re sharing a room, buster. And besides,” he added gaily, “Tidus is already staying at Wakka’s tonight. We might as well make the most of it!”

_…Make the most of it?_

Riku’s hopes leapt just that little bit higher.

They retraced their earlier steps, the campus lights now forming bright pools in the darkness, Sora’s head leaning against Riku’s shoulder while Riku tried desperately not to accidentally twitch or – or do anything that might shatter this moment. They trudged upstairs and into Riku’s and Tidus’ room, Riku flicking on the lights as they stepped inside. Sora let out a happy sigh and drifted over to the bed, plonking down heavily on Riku’s blankets.

“That’s better,” he mumbled. “I need a lie-down.”

With an amused shake of the head, Riku suggested, “Well, how about you take my bed, and I’ll take Tidus’?”

Sora held his gaze for a stretching, breathless moment. “I don’t think,” he said at last, “that that’s a good idea.” As Riku blinked, he softly continued, “If you’re over there, I can’t help anymore. I need to be… touching you… to hold back the darkness.”

Regardless of the fact that Riku had already got through a night’s sleep unscathed by his curse… he found himself slowly nodding. “…Yeah. You’re – probably right.” His skin humming, throat tight, he moved over to where Sora sat, the boy watching his approach beatifically. “So – how should we do this?” Riku quietly asked.

Drawing a faintly shaking breath, Sora stated bluntly, “First, I think we need to take off our shirts.” When Riku stared, lips parting slightly, he explained, “We need skin-to-skin contact for me to be able to be effective, and… holding hands won’t work if we’re sleeping. We might become separated in the night.”

Heart thumping, Riku nodded. “Oh. Right. Well…”

Sora lifted his arms, and asked simply, “Help me undress?”

It was all Riku could do not to shudder.

Cautiously, gently, he leaned down and, with Sora’s face just inches from his own, the boy’s eyes boring into him, took hold of the hem of his hoodie. Swallowing, he lifted it carefully, peeling the red fabric up his torso, lifting it over his head, tugging it down his arms and away. Soon, Sora was in jeans and black t-shirt, staring up at Riku with mussed hair and an unguarded expression. Riku dropped the hoodie at the end of the bed, and Sora once again lifted his arms. Feeling his tenuous grasp on his composure slipping, Riku did the same with his t-shirt, trembling fingers this time grazing skin, passing over ribs, Sora’s tanned flesh appearing inch by inch, until at last he was sitting half-naked on Riku’s bed.

He saw Sora’s throat bob as he, too, gulped a little. Then, the boy murmured, “Your turn.”

With a low exhalation, Riku made as little of a production of the process as he could. He yanked his sweater off unceremoniously, then, with Sora’s eyes fixated on him all the while, did his best to unbutton the shirt beneath with unsteady hands. As his stomach and chest became exposed, he could hear Sora’s breaths deepen. When he finally worked up the courage to look at the boy, he saw a light blush sweeping Sora’s cheeks, and a glisten on his lips, as if he’d recently licked them. Riku quickly shrugged his shirt off and dropped it to the floor, not knowing, anymore, where to look.

A stillness fell over the room, as neither of them moved for a moment. It was Sora who eventually broke it, shifting back to lever off his shoes with each foot, before scooting towards the wall and pushing back the blankets to lie down. With a coy smile, he patted the empty space beside him. Setting his head onto the pillow, he watched Riku slowly bend and pull his shoes off, before sliding in next to the boy. He couldn’t fit on his back, the bed was too small; so instead, he found himself on his side, nearly nose to nose with Sora, whose smile slowly grew.

“Hey,” the boy said, to which Riku gave his own husky, “Hey.”

Sora studied him from up close, eyes roaming over Riku’s features, the smile fading slightly. “It’s been a long day, huh?”

Riku nodded minutely, his hair shifting under his head. “You must be tired,” he said. “You’ve been running around after me all day. You’ve done… so much. I don’t think I can ever thank you properly.”

Sora traced a finger along Riku’s jaw, making his eyelids flutter. “Well, I haven’t saved you yet,” he reminded him. Then, with a cheeky glint in his eye, he asked, “Did you ever think that maybe… this is one of those curses that goes away when you get kissed?”

Riku couldn’t help but give a crooked grin. “…Like you’re the prince, and I’m the sleeping princess?”

The finger moving to the bridge of his nose, Sora whispered, “Wanna test it out?”

Riku could hardly breathe. Needing no further prompting, he inched closer on the pillow, eyes falling shut as their lips brushed. Sora’s hand flattened gently on the side of his face, mouth moving softly against his, chaste little kisses that took Riku to heaven. He realised that he was smiling, so widely that it ached, Sora giggling softly at the sight. Drawing back an inch, the boy regarded him tenderly, brushing away a lock of hair. An element of sobriety entering his tone, he said, “I’ve been waiting for this for so long…”

Before Riku had a chance to think this through, or try to muster up a response, Sora’s lips were back on his own – only this time, the chasteness melted swiftly away, replaced by heartfelt need. Riku responded instantly. The moment their tongues touched for the first time, he felt the day’s mounting desires rise and crash through his body, his hands moving to Sora’s waist and tightening. The boy gasped lightly and shifted closer, wrapping an arm under Riku’s shoulder and curling it around. Riku kissed him deeply, palms dragging across his bare hips, caressing them before tugging his lower body close by the loops on his jeans. Sora grunted as their hips connected, breaking away to take a gulp of fresh air.

“Everything okay?” Riku managed to utter. Sora answered by taking hold of his face and returning to his lips, while pulling Riku on top of him. From there everything became a blur of bodies gently rocking, hoarse voices occasionally finding the air, and mouths that could scarcely bear to be apart. Riku felt himself drowning in Sora, and had wanted nothing more in his entire life. Pleasure spiked through him, along with the continuous, searing need to hold the boy as close as possible, perhaps never let him go – just spend the rest of whatever life he had like this, and let the darkness eat away at him until he was gone.

He didn’t need a lucky charm. He just needed this until he died.

.o.O.o.

Morning surprised Riku, who hadn’t noticed himself falling asleep. He woke up groggy, half twisted in the blankets, which were tangled around his jeans-clad legs. When he looked sideways, he found Sora still fast asleep, curled into him, expressionless for once but still somehow so innocent-looking. At the sight, Riku felt an attack of tenderness that almost hurt, his heart seeming two sizes too large for his chest. He inhaled deeply, the scent of Sora’s hair filling him, and slowly exhaled again.

Evidently slumbering only lightly, the exaggerated rise and fall of Riku’s chest was enough to stir Sora, big blue eyes blinking sleepily to life. Recognition of Riku appeared to hit him all at once, and, for a moment, Sora went… very still. Riku felt his stomach clutch with sudden alarm as it occurred to him that Sora may have only climbed into his bed because he’d been intoxicated. He hadn’t seemed all that drunk at the time, but what if Riku had been wrong about that? Oh, _shit._

Gradually, the look on Sora’s face became one of awe, however, some of Riku’s panic replaced instead by a faint sense of bemusement. Sora stared at him, utterly silent, for an entire minute. Then, at long last, he picked a hand off of Riku’s chest to timidly touch his cheek. “This is real, right?” His voice was hoarse from sleep, and… something more. He seemed almost disbelieving to see himself with a bedfellow. He cemented this opinion when he pinched Riku’s nose between his thumb and forefinger and squeezed.

 _“Ah!_ Sora!”

Sora gasped and quickly released him. “You’re real!” Before Riku could say anything, he was engulfed by Sora, who threw his arms around him and hugged him almost frantically, as if to let him get too far away would be to see him dissolve into the ether.

“S-Sora?” Riku patted his head, then dragged his fingers through the boy’s hair, massaging his scalp lightly. Pulling back gently, he angled Sora’s face back a little, so their eyes could meet. “What’s… all this?” he asked, mystified. “Are you still drunk?” He was startled to see Sora’s face contract with emotion. With concern, he demanded, “What is it? What’s wrong?”

“You’re _here,”_ Sora said, voice quavering, and again buried his face into Riku’s chest. This time, the mystified Riku just waited, holding him securely and hoping that sooner or later Sora would provide an explanation.

It took a little while, but eventually, the boy emerged again, Riku stunned to see that he’d been crying a little, despite the fact that he was now all smiles, so dazzlingly bright it was a wonder they didn’t burn Riku up.

“You don’t need to worry about the darkness anymore, Riku. It won’t bother you again.”

It took him a moment to reply, both because the look on Sora’s face and the completely unexpected nature of his words. “Wh-what? Why? It won’t?”

Sora giggled at his confusion, brushing a hand through Riku’s messy hair. “Everything is going to be all right. Since the moment you came to me, you fixed it. All by yourself. You don’t need a lucky charm.”

“I don’t?” Peering at Sora searchingly, he helplessly offered, “I don’t understand.”

Drawing a breath, closing his eyes, Sora took a few seconds to collect himself. When he opened his eyes again, they were the warmest, fondest eyes that Riku had ever seen in his life. “I have a little confession to make, and I hope it won’t anger you, or – or weird you out.” He steeled himself a little, as if expecting Riku to react less than pleasantly. “I’ve been… dreaming of you for most of my life.” When Riku simply stared, uncomprehending, he elaborated, almost reluctantly, “They started when I was a kid. I’ve been having the dreams for nearly twelve years, and you were always there… always _here,_ at HBU. That’s why I came here. I was sure I would find you, or… you would find me.” Withdrawing a little to get a good look at Riku’s expression, he asked tentatively, “Have I… freaked you out yet?”

Riku blinked. “I – I don’t know. I don’t think so. I don’t… understand.” What was Sora _saying,_ exactly? _Dreaming_ of him? For _twelve years?_ “Is this because of your – psychic thing?” Apprehensively, Sora nodded. Riku considered this as best he could, what with it being a lot to take in first thing in the morning. “And that means that… when you saw me at the library…”

“I realised it was you right away,” Sora whispered, hiding his face behind his hands, watching Riku through the gaps in his fingers. “I’m sorry for being dishonest. There was no way I could just come out with it, though. Not then. Not yet. I had to wait.”

“For what?” Riku blankly asked.

Sora tremulously smiled. “For _this._ For you to – want me. And like me. And want to be with me.” Doubt touched his features after these words had left his mouth, hands lowering. “Um – uh – do you?”

Riku thought about it. He was having trouble believing it, but – at the same time, this was _Sora._ Psychic Sora. It was highly unlikely that he was making it up, or was out of his mind. For a second, Riku felt like maybe _he_ was; but when he looked at Sora, waiting so nervously for his answer… Well, whatever had been behind their meeting, he couldn’t deny this much: “…Yeah. I do.”

Once again, Sora’s smile was fit to light the world, his relief palpable. “I’m – I’m so sorry I kept it from you. But I am – _so happy_ to hear you say that. I’ve been waiting for you for… so long. That’s not creepy, is it?” he wondered out loud, sounding worried.

Riku laughed slightly, still completely baffled, but ready to roll with the punches. “It’s weird,” he admitted, “but – _I_ don’t think it’s creepy.”

“When I realised what a nice guy you are, I could hardly believe it,” Sora told him, an echo of that happiness radiating from him. “And when I saw the darkness in you, I realised why it was we had to meet.” Rising onto one elbow, he placed a hand on Riku’s chest, above his heart, and said, “This. Right here. This is why you don’t need a lucky charm.”

Glancing down at his hand, Riku returned his gaze to Sora’s with his unspoken question.

“I’m in your heart, now,” the boy softly told him. “And as long as I’m there, you’ll be safe. You don’t even have to worry about… liking me for long… because now that I’ve touched your heart, the darkness can’t hurt you.” Sheepishly, he added, “Another confession: we didn’t… strictly _need_ to be holding hands that whole time. I just… I just enjoyed holding your hand.”

Riku’s eyebrows shot up, followed by a startled laugh that was loud in the hush. “Seriously?” As the boy ruefully nodded, Riku shook his head, grinning from ear to ear. “Unbelievable. You’re lucky that I enjoyed it, too.” At the boy’s pleased expression, he caught Sora’s face in his hand, rubbing his thumb against his cheek. “And… I don’t think you need to worry about me stopping liking you,” he added, almost too quiet to hear. “I might not have been dreaming about you, and I might not be psychic… but even I can feel it when a missing piece of the puzzle slots into place. I guess that maybe was waiting for you, too – I just didn’t know it until we met.”

Sora apparently couldn’t handle it anymore. His lips met Riku’s in a crash that was almost painful, the pair of them needing to take a moment to find the right rhythm… and, at last, each felt the utter rightness of having found a piece of himself in the other.

.o.O.o.

_Seven Years Later_

The party had been in full swing for several hours now. It was small, but energetic, fun, and the drinks were flowing.

Riku wore a pointed party hat, which Kairi had forced onto his head, the elastic snug under his jaw, and insisted he keep it there. “It’s your _special day,”_ she had yelled, already a little over the edge with booze, before tottering off to find something to eat. Sora was beside him the whole night, his smile joyful,  their hands clasped tight. The party had a dual purpose: first, it was their seven-year anniversary; second, it was the end of an era.

At midnight, Sora called for quiet, Tidus, Selphie and Yuffie the hardest ones to shut up before he could finally take a moment to place his hands on Riku’s shoulders. He closed his eyes with everyone crowded around, waiting with bated breath as he took a few slow breaths and concentrated.

Once a year, every year, Sora did this, and once a year, every year, he reported the state of the darkness in Riku. It had been reluctant to shift at first, but the last couple of years Sora had sworn he felt it weakening.

Tonight was special, though. Tonight was theoretically the last time he would ever have to do it, even though they both knew he would continue to check as long as they lived, just to make sure.

After a minute, Sora gradually started nodding. When he opened his eyes, Riku spied a few tears on his lashes. Beaming, Sora announced, “It’s gone.”

The cheers were deafening, Sora and Riku’s little house practically lifting from its foundations. They’d be lucky if the neighbours didn’t complain. Still, even Riku couldn’t help it: to the sky, he bellowed, _“Thanks for the curse, you corpse-mirror-inhabiting old witch!”_

He meant it, with every fibre of his being. He was grateful to her; she had handed him the greatest years of his life.

And the best part was that those first seven years were just the beginning.

 


End file.
